The Women-Owned Political Consulting Firm That Counts Cynthia Nixon as a Client

Back in November 2016, women across the United States waited patiently, expecting one particularly stubborn glass ceiling to break. But when it remained in tact, they lamented, hypothesized—and then quickly looked for another. A record number of women are running for the House of Representatives, the highest number we’ve seen since back in 2012. It’s shaping up to be a year to watch, as first-time female candidates across the country are deciding that they, too, want to run for office. And for Monica Klein and Elana Leopold, this was the moment to help.

The two first met in 2011 when they were the youngest women on the Bill de Blasio campaign, and they bonded over handling the worst of the grunt work. Together, they helped build the Women for de Blasio Committee, which brought together hundreds of women for the Mayor’s first election. They then went on to work together in City Hall and again on de Blasio’s 2017 re-election campaign; they also launched a political activist training camp called The Broad Room. But now, they’ve taken on a new venture: Seneca Strategies, New York’s first women-run political consulting firm, focused on electing female candidates into office.

The name—a nod to Seneca Falls, where the first women's rights convention took place— hints at their goals.Currently, all of Klein and Leopold's clients are progressive, first-time candidates, including Liuba Grechen Shirley, Jessica Ramos, and Cynthia Nixon, who started a Twitter storm when she announced she would be running for governor against Andrew Cuomo.

"There’s 309 women that are planning to run for Congress this year, which is 90 percent more than ran last year, and they all need campaign staff," Klein told ELLE.com. And not only do they need a staff, they need an experienced staff—people to help with communications, speech writing, fundraising, all the things that need to be in place so that the press and donors take you seriously as a candidate.

Monica Klein with Bill de Blasio.

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And this is where Seneca Strategies comes in. At the firm, Klein offers communications consulting while Leopold offers fundraising and political consulting, ensuring that their candidates can have teams made up of like-minded women. "We’ve really been able to see in every level, how it makes a difference when you have women in the room," Leopold said. (Even beyond policy, Leopold and Klein know what it means to be on a team with working mothers. They know not to call their candidates during the times they're picking up kids from school or relieving a babysitter—simple strategies that make everything run that much smoother.)

Plus, when women make up a campaign staff, they say, it’s unlikely that important issues—like childcare, paid family leave, and the wage gap—will fall by the wayside. After all, it’s their clients themselves who understand these issues at a visceral level; some of them are raising children while running for office.

“They really have an understanding of [the fact that] half of our country is women, but only 20 percent of Congress is,” Leopold said. “How we do not have the representation that we need? And when Congress is all wealthy white men, then we get policies that support wealthy, white men. And it's really important to have people that personally experience what it's like to not have a lactation room when you're trying to get through the work day or can't afford the healthcare bills for their child.”

But they also understand that following the typical Democratic "establishment playbook" won’t guarantee them a win. After the Trump election, Klein thinks people realized the standard Democratic messaging wasn’t working, and they needed to start from square one. So this time around Klein and Leopold are encouraging their clients to talk about issues that affect working people in a very real way, things like Medicare for all or fully funding public schools. Nixon is just one example of a candidate who's embraced these issues; her campaign has focused on things like public transportation and immigration.

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For Leopold, working with Nixon was a natural fit. She's known Nixon as an activist for years, starting way back on the de Blasio campaign trail, and now she's doing fundraising consulting for her campaign. "I think she has shown that she doesn’t only talk the talk, but she walks the walk," she said. "When she talks about income inequality, when she talks about spending for public schools, she’s a mother who has kids in public schools. She’s a product of public schools herself. She’s the daughter of a single mom, who started her acting career because her mom couldn’t pay for her to go to college. This is a woman who’s really lived a life that has been influenced by the issues she’s talking about."

And while some other Democratic politicians might shy away from having an unapologetically progressive platform, Klein and Leopold urge their candidates to do the opposite. "Because they're issues that matter to them personally," Klein said. "Because they are mothers and they are immigrants and they are people of color and they're working class people... [Women's issues are] not something that you can put on the side. Voters support authenticity, but they also respect when you're honest about your platform."

Since they have yet to see if their candidates will win, the two don't want to say their firm has been a success. But after only starting to interview clients in January, they've brought on five candidates and have more in the works. Seneca Strategies officially launches on May 18th, but already, they know the power of women on campaigns.

"There have been so many times where the two of us, especially because we were really young when we kind of rose up, it ended up that we were the only women in the room," Leopold said.

But those experiences only proved to them what can happen when you have someone else cheering you on, reminding you of your talents and your strength.

"I think we're both more confident now," Klein added, "because of each other."

With reporting by Mattie Kahn

Madison FellerMadison is a staff writer at ELLE.com, covering news, politics, and culture.

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